A Prayer for the Damned Read Free

that Abbot Ultán did not mean to imply a physical threat to me. That would be unthinkable in one who has been granted the hospitality of this house.’ Was there a slight emphasis, a gentle rebuke in that sentence? “The abbot was but giving voice to his conviction of the righteousness of his cause. Yet perhaps he was a little over-zealous in his choice of words?’
    Abbot Ségdae paused, clearly waiting for the response.
    There was a silence broken only by the crackle of the dry logs burning in the hearth at the far end of the chamber and by the winter wind moaning round the grey stones of the abbey walls. Even though it was late afternoon, it could have been midnight for it was
dubhluacran
, the darkest part of the year. Within a few days it would be the phase of the moon anciently called ‘the period of rest’,
mi faoide
, which started in contrary fashion with the feast of Imbolc, when the ewes began to come into lamb. It was a long, anxious time in the country.
    That very noon Abbot Ultán and his three followers had arrived at the abbey and announced that he was a special emissary from Ségéne, abbot and bishop of Ard Macha, the Cormarb or heir to the Blessed Patrick. Ségéne was regarded by many as the senior churchman in the northern kingdom of Ulaidh. Having been granted hospitality, Abbot Ultán and his companions had presented themselves in Abbot Seégdae’s sanctum to deliver their message.
    The proposal put forward by Abbot Ultán was simple. Abbot Ségdae, as the most senior churchman in Muman, was to recognise Ségéne of Ard Macha as
archiepiscopus
, chief bishop of all the kingdoms of Éireann. To support the claim, Abbot Ultán pointed out that the Blessed Patrick the Briton had received the
pallium
from thebishop of Rome, who was regarded as the chief bishop of the Faith. Patrick had then proceeded to convert the people of Éireann. He had made Ard Macha his primary seat and it was therefore argued that the bishops of that place should hold religious governance over all the five kingdoms and their sub-kingdoms.
    Abbot Ségdae had listened in polite silence while the northern cleric had put forward his argument, which was delivered in such blunt terms as almost to constitute a demand. When the envoy had sat back, Abbot Ségdae had pointed out, politely but with firmness, that churchmen and scholars from the other kingdoms of Éireann would argue that Patrick the Briton, blessed as he was, was not the first who had preached the New Faith in the land. Many others had come before him and one of these had converted Ailbe, son of Olcnais of Araid Cliach in the north-west of Muman, who had established his seat at Imleach. It was the great abbey in which they were presently gathered that was regarded by all the people of Muman as the chief centre of their faith, and when, in recent times, the abbots and bishops of Ard Macha had begun to assert their claims, they were immediately challenged by Imleach and most of the other churches in each of the five kingdoms of Éireann.
    It had been at that point that Abbot Ultán, a vain man of middle age, quite handsome in a dark, saturnine way, had pounded the table with his fist, clearly unused to anyone challenging his authority.
    Following Abbot Ségdae’s gentle rebuke, there was silence round the table. All eyes were upon the arrogant envoy of Ard Macha.
    Abbot Ultán flushed as he regarded the open hostility on the face of Brother Madagan and the others who sat across the table on either side of his host. Beside him, his scribe, Brother Drón, a thin, elderly man, with sharp features and birdlike movements, bent quickly forward and whispered in his ear,
‘Aurea mediocritas.’
He was urging the abbot to employ moderation: the ‘golden mean’. Attack was no way to win an argument when faced with such opposition.
    Abbot Ultán finally shrugged and tried to force a smile.
    ‘The words were spoken in the zealousness of my cause and intended no threat, physical or